ion only of the imagination is to be attempted.

We have hitherto been exclusively occupied with those sources of
pleasure which exist in the external creation, and which in any faithful
copy of it must to a certain extent exist also.

These sources of beauty, however, are not presented by any very great
work of art in a form of pure transcript. They invariably receive the
reflection of the mind under whose shadow they have passed, and are
modified or colored by its image.

This modification is the Work of Imagination.

As, in the course of our succeeding investigation, we shall be called
upon constantly to compare sources of beauty existing in nature with the
images of them presented by the human mind, it is very necessary for us
shortly to review the conditions and limits of the imaginative faculty,
and to ascertain by what tests we may distinguish its sane, healthy, and
profitable operation, from that which is erratic, diseased, and
dangerous.

It is neither desirable nor possible here to examine or illustrate in
full the essence of this mighty faculty. Such an examination would
require a review of the whole field of literature, and would alone
demand a volume. Our present task is not to explain or exhibit full
portraiture of this function of the mind in all its relations, but only
to obtain some certain tests by which we may determine whether it be
very imagination or no, and unmask all impersonations of it, and this
chiefly with respect to art, for in literature the faculty takes a
thousand forms, according to the matter it has to treat, and becomes
like the princess of the Arabian tale, sword, eagle, or fire, according
to the war it wages, sometimes piercing, sometimes soaring, sometimes
illumining, retaining no image of itself, except its supernatural power,
so that I shall content myself with tracing that particular form of it,
and unveiling those imitations of it only, which are to be found, or
feared, in painting, referring to other creations of mind only for
illustration.

Sec. 2. The works of the metaphysicians how nugatory with respect to this
faculty.

Unfortunately, the works of metaphysicians will afford us in this most
interesting inquiry no aid whatsoever. They who are constantly
endeavoring to fathom and explain the essence of the faculties of mind,
are sure in the end to lose sight of all that cannot be explained,
(though it may be defined and felt,) and because, as I shall presently